Spirit sweep Eternal Fire to win BB Dacha Belgrade Season 2

Spirit dropped just one map in Serbia as they emphatically bounced back from IEM Cologne.

Spirit are BetBoom Dacha Belgrade Season 2 champions after dominating Eternal Fire in a 3-0 grand final victory.

It's the Russian squad's third title of 2024 after IEM Katowice and BLAST Spring Final, and provides a crucial confidence boost after they exited IEM Cologne in last place.

Date	Matches
BetBoom Dacha Belgrade Season 2
28/08/2024	Spirit Finished 2:0 Falcons	Match
29/08/2024	Spirit Finished 2:0 FURIA	Match
30/08/2024	Spirit Finished 2:1 MOUZ	Match
01/09/2024	Spirit Finished 3:0 Eternal Fire	Match

"Winning any trophy feels good, especially after we beat MOUZ," Myroslav "⁠zont1x⁠" Plakhotia told the broadcast just moments after lifting the trophy. "As you can see we can play good CS even after Cologne. Cologne doesn't matter."

Read more

hally on IEM Cologne fiasco: "It's my mistake"

Spirit dropped just one map all event — to MOUZ, who beat them in the final of the first BB Dacha Belgrade event earlier this year —, and looked like themselves again with superstars Danil "⁠donk⁠" Kryshkovets and Dmitry "⁠sh1ro⁠" Sokolov ending the event as its two highest-rated players (1.48 and 1.38, respectively).

Like in earlier wins in Katowice and London, Spirit were a brutal force in the early game, winning 15 pistol rounds out of 20 for a 75% record and converting 100% of them into 2-0 leads.

That trend continued in the final, as Spirit won five out of six pistol rounds to put Eternal Fire's backs against the wall immediately.

On all three maps, however, Engin "⁠MAJ3R⁠" Küpeli's troops emerged from the first halves well in contention; the Turks led on Nuke, and it was 6-6 on Vertigo and Mirage.

Where Spirit won the grand final was instead in the second halves, going 8-0 on Nuke, 7-2 on Vertigo, and 7-3 on Mirage after winning all three pistols and running away with the match.

It was interesting to see Spirit on Vertigo, the battleground where their PGL Copenhagen Major journey was ended in shocking fashion by FaZe and a map they generally avoid, but zont1x shut any narrative down by posting 126 ADR and 8 multi-kills en route to another convincing victory.

Mirage was map three, and Eternal Fire would have been well aware of the dire record of teams attempting to reverse sweep a best-of-five finals. Only Spirit themselves have ever recovered from 2-0 down on LAN to win a BO5, at BB Dacha 2023 in Abu Dhabi against Virtus.pro, and on Mirage Spirit ensured they kept that record intact.

donk, who was fairly quiet as sh1ro took over Nuke and zont1x Vertigo, arrived with his trademark round-winning double kills. MAJ3R turned 2v5 and 1v2 situations in EF's favor, but those were the only two rounds Eternal Fire won in the second half: Spirit proved too strong and closed the map 13-9 and series 3-0.

Spirit's focus, however, lies firmly on bigger goals. Leonid "⁠chopper⁠" Vishnyakov, on stage post-match, summed the team's attitude up: "Tomorrow we have a flight to EPL, but this tournament was good for our confidence." With a $250,000 first prize in the bank, it's job done for Spirit in Belgrade.